


Iron Chef Hikago

by issen4



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Iron Chef (Japan) fusion, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-31
Updated: 2010-08-31
Packaged: 2017-11-06 01:29:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/413219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/issen4/pseuds/issen4
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mitsuko and Akari are audience at a recording session of Iron Chef.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Iron Chef Hikago

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Ai.  
> Characters are the creation of Hotta and Obata. Iron Chef was conceptualised by Fuji Television.

The scene: Kitchen Stadium

In the audience:

"It’s certainly very crowded," Shindou Mitsuko looked around, her expression uncertain as she took in the scene.

"Is this the first time you’ve been to a TV studio, Shindou-san?" Akari asked politely, settling down beside her.

"Yes." She peered around, as though looking for someone, and turned to her. "Are you sure I should be here? I-"

"It’s all right!" Akari said. "Are you looking for Hikaru? He won’t enter the arena until Chairman Kaga introduces him and the challenger."

"Hikaru might not like it—he said I know nothing about cooking competitions… Chairman Kaga? Is that his position?"

"Oh, no, it’s just a name, for his character." She dug into her purse, and came out with the flyer for the show. "See, that's him."

Mitsuko stared at the photograph of the man. “He looks a bit familiar…"

Akari nodded knowledgeably. "Uh-huh. Kaga-senpai. He was two years ahead of us in high school. That’s where you probably met him, at the Cooking Club. Poor senpai Kaga. He used to play shogi, you know. It drove him crazy, and there’s only one place left for someone like that: television. Just watch when he appears, and you’ll know what I mean. His clothes!” She shuddered.

A woman sitting in front of them turned around with an affronted look in her eyes. "Excuse me," she said. "Chairman Kaga has exquisite taste, and I think he always looks gorgeous."

Akari tried not to choke. Before she could say anything, loud music burst from the speakers, and the voiceover for Iron Chef began. "If memory serves me..."

As soon as it ended, Chairman Kaga appeared in the centre, the spotlight revealing every yard of the genuine Versailles lace that covered his wrists, waistcoat and collar, picking up the giant diamond pin on his black velvet jacket and scattering pinpoints of light around the darkened area. There was a large Chinese fan tucked into the waistband of his shirt, and the long hakama barely hid the wooden clogs on his feet.

"Is that-" Mitsuko couldn't bring herself to say it.

"French Gothic meets Edo-style Japanese. I don't recommend it."

"Neither do I. But I mean, is he really-"

Akari saw what she meant. "Yes, it's a real tomato that he's biting into."

"But... that's an imported tomato! American, by the looks of it. What's wrong with local, Japanese-grown ones?"

Akari shrugged. And to think she had wondered where Hikaru got his culinary fanaticism from! Definitely not husband material, she thought, crossing off a mental list.

"Today's challenger is Touya Akira, from the Touya clan, the last bastion of traditional Japanese cooking!" Chairman Kaga roared, raising an arm towards his right in a welcoming gesture.

Mitsuko gave a start at the announcement.

"The 'last bastion' is so clichéd," Akari said in an aside to Mitsuko. "Traditional Japanese cuisine is hardly dying out. They just feel threatened by Hikaru." Then she, too, fell silent when the spotlight fell on a young man.

He looked like he might have stepped out from the pages of an old Japanese novel: his black, straight hair was cut neatly across his forehead, and the rest barely brushed his shoulders as he bowed to the Chairman Kaga. When he straightened, everyone could see that his eyes, though narrowed, were fierce and intense.

"Ooh," whispered Akari, forgetting to breathe.

The rest of the audience were similarly hushed, so much so that when Hikaru finally appeared, even his fans forgot to cheer.

"But he's-" Mitsuko began.

"Good looking, isn't he?" Akari said with an appreciative smile. "I've seen pictures of him, but he looks much better in person. Don't you think so, Shindou-san?"

"But isn't he-"

"Yes, he looks young, but he's the new hope of the Touya clan, I've heard."

"But Hikaru-"

"I have every confidence in Hikaru, though," Akari said. "After all, nine times out of ten, the Iron Chef beats the challenger."

Mitsuko gave up, and turned her attention back to the stage. By now her son, as the Iron Chef, had stepped forward, and bowed as though he was going to war.

"The secret ingredient is... mochi!" Chairman Kaga roared again, unveiling what seemed like several hundred pieces of mochi, stacked into a small mountain amidst bunches of peppermint sprigs and clouds of dry ice.

"Mochi?" Akari muttered as both chefs now started running towards the mochi-mountain. "How is Hikaru going to make ramen out of that?"

"Make ramen?" Mitsuko asked. "How do you know he's going to make ramen?"

"That's Hikaru's trademark. He always makes ramen using the secret ingredient."

***

_"Fukui-san! What is the challenger doing with the sake?"_

_"It looks like... he's dousing the beef with it!... And now he's adding chopped onions, curry powder, and milk!"_

_"Milk? Unusual ingredient in traditional Japanese cuisine, right?"_

_"He must be trying to pre-empt Shindou-sensei's quirks for using unusual ingredients!"_

_"...Fukui-san! Shindou-sensei has just asked his assistant to unwrap twenty Mars bars!"_

_"Mars bars? What is he planning to make with them?"_

_"I'll ask him. Shindou-sensei, what are you... Fukui-san, Shindou-sensei is cutting the daifuku into two, and inserting cut-up pieces of Mars bars into them!"_

_"It must be the dessert!"_

_"No, Shindou-sensei says that this is the appetizer!"_

***

Mitsuko watched the chaos unfolding in the Kitchen Stadium, with teams of reporters, each followed by a camera and excited jabbering. "No wonder he keeps complaining that our kitchen is too small," she murmured to Akari.

Akari had rested her chin between two hands, and was watching with fascination. "I know! Isn't this fun? Hikaru says he gets his best ideas when he's in a challenge."

"Time's up." The announcement made the conversation all around them die away, just in time for one final interruption.

"Fukui-san! I just found out. The challenger actually made ramen!"

Akari sat up. "Oh no."

Mitsuko glanced at her. "What do you mean, 'oh no'?"

"Hikaru hates it when other challengers copy his signature move of making ramen. There's going to be a confrontation!"

Sure enough, Hikaru in his yellow garb and a red flush on his face, strode over to the challenger's side of the Kitchen Stadium.

"Excuse me?" Touya Akira said, quite clearly, and coolly.

"What's the meaning of this, Touya!" Hikaru roared, leading to a loud squeal of feedback from his microphone.

Both Akari and Mitsuko clapped their hands over their ears, as did many members of the audience.

There was a fiercely whispered conversation between Hikaru and Touya after that, before Hikaru's assistant dragged him away.

"Oh, dear," Mitsuko said.

Akari followed her gaze, and found that she was looking not at Hikaru, but at Touya. The challenger looked... well, 'pissed off' was an apt description, despite his obvious effort to look calm.

"If I've told Hikaru once, I've told him a dozen times: never mix pleasure with work-" Mitsuko began, before clapping a hand to her lips.

"What?" Akari asked.

"Oh, I was just wondering, what happens next?"

"Oh, the announcer will tell us the dishes that they prepared, and the panel of tasters will try the food. It'll be quite boring while we wait, by the way. Do you want to go and look for Hikaru backstage?"

Mitsuko's earlier nervousness returned. "Oh, no, that's all right. I shouldn't interrupt..."

Akari shrugged inwardly. Privately, she thought it didn't matter. Besides, she wanted to know what Hikaru and Touya had been saying to each other. It was not like Hikaru to back down from a confrontation so quickly.

After a long wait, Chairman Kaga entered the stage again. The Kitchen Stadium had been cleaned up in the meantime, all the better for the spotlight to focus on him. Akari waited impatiently as he went on a long spiel about the genius of the two chefs, and how wonderful it was to find such talented chefs in Japan.

"Bet he didn't think that when he had to eat the chicken-flavoured mochi ramen," she muttered to Mitsuko.

Mitsuko winced at that. Both of them had groaned when Hikaru's dishes were announced; it seemed that he cooked more and more outlandish things with each course. "And having to eat it with the Chinese parsley Hikaru added, too! Too overpowering, in my opinion."

"That wasn't my point-" Akari began, but snapped her mouth shut as the drumroll began.

_"The judging process was very close, and the winner won by only two votes!"_

Both Akari and Mitsuko leant forward in their eagerness. The rest of the audience did so, too.

"The winner of the mochi challenge is...." Chairman Kaga waved a hand. "Iron Chef Shindou!"

"They picked chopped Mars bars over black pepper mochi?" Mitsuko said in disbelief.

Akari sat back, reluctantly allowing a sigh of relief to escape her lips. Hikaru's dishes were weird, but she had still hoped that he would win. "Told you the Iron Chef wins nine times out of ten."

Then she choked, for before her very eyes, Hikaru, instead of bowing to the challenger, was kissing him. "Wh-"

"Touya-kun has been dating Hikaru for years," Mitsuko said. "Ever since the Young Chefs Competition."

Akari turned to her. "Then you-him-" she tried to get her thoughts in order. "When you saw him-"

"I recognized him, of course. He's so much more good-looking when he isn't wearing those sweaters," Mitsuko mused.

"Then... you... They're rivals, how can they date each other!"

Mitsuko said placidly, "I hope the TV station cuts this part when they televise it; children might be watching."

The audience was starting to cheer as the kiss went on. Chairman Kaga was making time-out gestures, to no avail. Akari sat back, speechless.

/end


End file.
